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A fantastic world of adventure unfolds in this vertical-scrolling shooter.

Throughout the history of shooting games we've faced a hell of a lot of alien rebels and futuristic baddies. The 2D shooter seems to lend itself to these situations - but it's always nice to see a company try something fresh and new. The PC Engine/TG-16 blast-a-thon Dragon Spirit is one such example. Namco had clearly had..

About The Game

A fantastic world of adventure unfolds in this vertical-scrolling shooter. Sealed away by the gods long ago, the Evil Demon of Darkness, Zawell, seeks to rise again and unleash a new reign of evil. The brave warrior Amur races to rescue Princess Alicia from the demon's wretched clutches.

Amur takes the form of the legendary Blue Dragon and fights his way through the legions of monsters that await in the sky. Battle your way through eight different areas, using your Dragon Breath to bring down airborne targets and Fireballs to wipe out targets on the ground.

Destroy flashing enemies and smash Eggs to uncover different kinds of power-up items. Boost your firepower by increasing the number of heads your dragon has, and defeat all the bosses as you make your way to Zawell's dark lair.

This game isn't bad but it's very unforgiving and you'll find yourself getting frequently frustrated with it. Back when I actually owned a TG-16, I played this game for hours and only got to the end of the second stage. It requires a lot of memorization to get through and combined with the slow movement speed of your dragon, it can be frustrating. But definitely not to be missed if you're a hardcore shooter fan and in particular, if you like shooters that take a while to master.

Does anyone else think it is lame that Dragon Spirit also came out on NES but because Nintendo wants to make an extra buck from each buyer that they are releasing it as a TG-16 game? For one who did love this game as a kid I almost want to boycott it so Nintendo won't continue to release games under the system that gives them the extra $. Besides, few of these virtual consol games get much play time. We get them but after a few days won't play them again for quite some time.

I absolutely loved this game as a kid. Well, not this game exactly, but the NES spinoff. As for which is better, thats a matter of taste. The TG16 version has graphics and sound much closer to the arcade original, but the NES version has some added material including an introduction story and an easy mode (activated automatically if you die on the tutorial level).

This is one of my all-time favorite shooters, though I admit I'm not a huge fan of the genre in general. Its theme and presentation really make it a lot more interesting for me, playing as a dragon is just really cool no matter how you slice it.

If you're not super-amazing at playing shooters, I highly recommend playing through this one with the turbo keys. It makes the game a lot less frustrating without being overly easy either. It also seems to play a lot easier with an analog stick instead of a D-pad, which is weird since it was never designed with that in mind.

I recommend this game for anyone who enjoys playing as a dragon, since that is really this game's main draw. As you power up, you grow extra heads. Doesn't get much better than that. If they release the NES spinoff in the future, I'll download that version too.

I loved the NES version of Dragon Spirit, and when I bought this I was expecting a prettier version of that. Unfortunately, I realized that the TG-16 version of this game is a direct port from the arcade, and was lacking features I was expecting from the NES version including an introduction level to decide your difficulty, story sequences in between stages, and different endings. If you died on the first level, you played as a gold dragon with double health, but got a crappy ending. I never did beat it as the blue dragon, but assumed the ending was better.

The gameplay is the same, the graphics are a little better, the soundtrack is still great, but anyone expecting a graphically enhanced version of the NES game should beware. I really miss the sequences.

I played the TG16 version of this game back in the day, and i had some trouble with it. It's a decent enough shooter, but the real issue is that the main player sprite - the dragon - is friggin' huge. It's tough to dodge hails of bullets and multiple enemies, maneuvering all over the place on the screen, with a gigantic dragon.

That makes the game difficult. It's passable as a shooter, and the concept/artwork is pretty nice, but overall it's not as good as many of the other shooters of the console.

I think that I would download this only because the protagonist is a dragon.

Then again, I would spend my hypothetical 600 remaining Wii Points on My Aquarium, instead, even though not only I dislike having leftover Wii Points left but also I go back to the actual ammount I have now...

I used to play this on the PC Engine we had imported from Japan in the early 90s. Dragon Spirit was always one of my favourites, even back then I loved the music on this game. Even in its flat, basic tone the music is brilliant.

The dragon's size isn't overally big, but big enough that dodging it a task - but it is part of the challenge. The cost of having 3 heads with strong fire power is a larger target in yourelf. This game is bascially about remembering enemy locations.

I have only ever finished this about twice in my life. The hardest part of this, is the last 2 levels, but the most unforgiving section is the final corridor before the boss - a narrow corridor with sharp spears jutting in and out quickly towards you, as smaller enemies shoot at you. Being a small dragon(a power up) would help you get through - but you lack firepower for the end boss, which sucks you towards it with its weapon.

A great game, overlooked and and underated. Easy to understand, but those who got to play it years ago, will realise why it is a treasure.

I have the arcade original of this game on the Namco Anniversary Collection, and I never really got into it. For one, I suck majorly at it. The dragon's massive size and hitbox makes it incredibly hard to dodge enemies and bullets, and even when I set the health bar to three units, I always wound up with a game over by the time I hit level 2.

The music is pretty good though, and the game's unique in that it lets you play as a guy that transforms into a dragon, which is a lot cooler than playing as some generic space ship. Gameplay wise, it's basically just a medieval Xevious with power-ups.